A Net Neutrality Timeline: How We Got Here

Updated:The FCC Tuesday voted 3:2 to approve an order that will enshrine the policies of network neutrality — the idea that ISPs can’t hinder or discriminate against lawful content flowing through their pipes — as regulations enforced by the commission. While legal challenges remain, and the text of the full order won’t be out for a few days, here’s the gist of what’s in store, as I explained last night: The order contains three sections that set policies around transparency, create a prohibition against blocking lawful content on wireline networks and certain types of content on wireless networks, and set up rules preventing unreasonable discrimination. More analysis will come later. Update: Here’s the release discussing the order, and the full order itself will come in a few days.

As for how we got here, this is a brief recap of the events and decisions leading up to today’s vote:

2004: In February, then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell gives a speech in Colorado called “Preserving Internet Freedom: Guiding Principles for the Industry,” outlining the idea of four Internet Freedoms in response to calls for some type of network neutrality.

2005: In February, Madison River, a telephone company, blocks Vonage VoIP services, creating one of the first cases of an ISP discriminating against IP traffic. The FCC later put a stop to the discrimination, and in August the commission proposed a set of four Open Internet Principles, which can be found here. As a policy statement, they were a start, but they lacked teeth because they weren’t regulations. They said consumers were entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice, to run applications and use services of their choice, connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network, and they are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Today, the FCC revamped its order to provide the three principles described above. The compromise is better than the original framework proposed earlier month, but it still has plenty of loopholes and rests on somewhat uncertain legal authority. That will ensure the FCC is arbitrating network neutrality disputes for years to come and likely fighting for that power in the courts.